As fresh water demands increase along with the confounding impacts of global warming on water, the potential for a global water crisis is imminent because of the decrease in fresh water quality, availability, and supply for human consumption and other commercial, industrial, agricultural sectors. Therefore, integrated water resource management, including water treatment, has become one of the most urgent issues of the 21st century.
Depending upon the natural or anthropogenic sources, saline water may generally contain dissolved metals, organic contaminants and a complex mixture of salts, ranging in a total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration from about 1000 mg/L to 250,000 mg/L. Typical sources of saline water are sea water, naturally occurring saline surface water or brackish ground water, fertilizer salt run-off (from irrigation), salt retention ponds (from the storage of de-icer salts for transportation network maintenance), produced water (from oil and gas exploration and production, depressurizing coal bed methane or mine operations and drainage) and brines generated from various industrial processes.
Saline water can be treated by various desalination processes, such as thermal, prissier or electrically driven, to remove dissolved salts and minerals and produce de-mineralized water for various uses, such as for the production of drinking water, effluent treatment and water reclamation. However, conventional desalination processes are energy intensive and can cause significant operational and environmental impact.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an improved desalination system and a water treatment process.